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Be bad for business, of course. joining us now for more on this, from washington, former house judiciary counsel, democratic strategist, julian epstein, and msnbc political analyst, jonathan alter, a columnist for "bloomberg view." julian, with thousands of lives at stake all around the world, 150 countries are coming together to try and prevent arms trafficking, but they won't succeed if the nra has anything to say about it, i guess. is that right? >> thousands of lives is an understatement, martin. >> forgive any. >> according to international human rights organizations, about 2,000 civilian...

Read the heller case in 2008. it's very, very simple. the court says the second amendment applies to an exceedingly narrow number of cases. handguns inside the home. >> julian epstein, jonathan alt alter. i'm afraid we've run out of time. thank you, both. >> thanks, martin. >> thank you. >> and we'll be right back. it's monday. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - ...

Go to our blog and leave a comment. we'll bring the results later on in the show. i am joined tonight by bloomberg view columnist jonathan alter. also with us, michael kinsley, who is also a columnist for bloomberg view. gentlemen, great to have you with us tonight. michael, we'll start with you. michael, you wrote today that the ad, it may be tough, but it's not dishonest. do you agree it really puts the focus on the serious issues, genrically speaking, overlooking this whole campaign? >> sure, but i think, ed, we have to concede that this ad did imply that romney was in some way responsibl...

Cancer somewhere else. >> if health care becomes a main issue down the stretch of the campaign, will romney have to defend his record in massachusetts? according to his spokesperson, he probably would have to, but what do you think? >> he seems to be able to getting away with not defending his record on all sorts of things. as i was saying, the buck doesn't stop here. he had nothing to do with any decision at bain to close a factory. he has nothing to do with his wife's horse hobby, he doesn't even know when her horse is performing in the olympics. >> yeah. >> and so on. i think that's a tick ...

Get sick. and people without health insurance don't, so i think that conclusion is perfectly fair, and let me go a little further. i don't -- i mean, i believe in capitalism. i believe in free markets. i would not even say for sure that perhaps -- perhaps this guy laying off people in this factory was the right thing to do, but romney won't defend it, like he never defends anything he's done that comes under criticism. instead, he says the buck doesn't stop here. >> jonathan -- jonathan alter, i want to ask you, did the situation damage the romney camp with conservatives? >> you know, i think ...